Note 25. One of the first propagators of Filipino masonry was
Sr. Centeno, Civil Governor of Manila, a man of anything but happy
memory for this country [36]. Centeno and Quiroga Ballesteros worked
hard to undermine the beneficial influence of the Clergy, an influence
which was the safe-guard of law and order. Their most famous piece of
work was the manifestation of '88 against Archbishop Payo (See note
2). In that manifestation was conceived the cry of sedition which
was later on to ring throughout the archipelago and tear down the
banner of the fatherland to replace it with the red flag of anarchy;
a flag which well nigh brought the people of a would be independent
country to the verge of political and moral destruction.
Note 26. No sooner had Almighty God consummated the grand work of
the creation, the culmination of which was the breathing into man
of an immortal soul, than the devil, the father of evil, jealous of
the attributes given by God to man, made his bold attempt to destroy
God's immortal work. From that moment to this present the spirits
of evil have carried on an unceasing warfare against what has been
for the glory of God. The Monastic Orders ever since the days of
their birth have had to contend against these powers of evil; and
there is therefore little necessity for surprise that those who were
employed in such work as were the unscrupulous persons who came to the
archipelago to sow ruin in the consciences of the people and scandal
in society, should carry on a bitter campaign against the Religious
Orders to whom was owing every jot and tittle of the civilization and
culture enjoyed by the Filipinos. The Monastic Orders have ever been
the bulwark of Christianity, and as such have had to bear the brunt
of the battle. Europe owes the solid foundation of its political,
social and religious life to the Religious Orders, which, during
the ages in which the Huns, Goths and other barbarians overran and
devastated those lands, hoarded up in the nooks and corners of their
monastic dwellings the seed which, when afterwards sown, was to become
the stout tree of civilization which should spread its sheltering
branches to the four corners of the earth. One of these branches
drawing its fullness of life and vigor directly from the trunk,
extended to these far off islands and, casting its shade over the
embruted mankind here existing at that time, wrought a change over
it no less marked than that wrought over the European peoples. From
the day in which Father Urdaneta, that intrepid Augustinian, set
foot upon Philippine soil, till the day upon which the hydra-headed
Katipunan appeared in the land, the Monastic Orders have been the
one great source of all that was really useful and beneficial to the
inhabitants of the archipelago, although at times the moral interests
of the people were not the commercial interests of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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